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around a lot.
    “You
do?” Her voice was even, curious. I wondered if she hadn’t understood what I’d
said.
    “Yes.”
Nodding, I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans.  
    She
frowned slightly. “What makes you think that?”
    I
tried to say the words, but my tongue felt heavy and my jaws ached with
immobility. It was the same hesitation that had kept me from making this
appointment for so long. I knew what I was afraid of. Knew that this wasn’t
just about someone thinking I was mentally unstable. The truth was, there was a
part of me that was scared that if I said it out loud, I’d make it untrue. What
if the magic disappears once you name it? What if telling someone what I believed
meant that I’d break the spell and end up totally, finally alone? Instead of
words, I glanced nervously at her face again and then back at her shoes.
    “Let’s
start with something easier today, Rachel. Tell me about your family.”
    Raising
my eyes, I half smiled. It was hardly easier to talk about my family, but at
least it would sound less insane.
      “I live with my Mom,” I said. Alex nodded
encouragingly. “She’s a nurse.” I folded my arms and looked out the window, not
wanting to wade into the sorrow that usually accompanied my next sentence. “My
father’s dead.”
    “I’m
so sorry Rachel.” She looked directly at me as she said it.
    I
nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”
    Silence.
    “Do
you have any brothers or sisters?”
    And
so I told her. I’d always known I was a twin. Even lost in their grief, my
parents understood that dishonesty about the details of my birth would only
spell disaster later. From the very beginning, they spoke about Jacob in my
presence and told me how much he was loved. When I was very young, maybe two or
three years old, my mother explained to me that Jacob had been a very special
baby. She said it had been his job to help me into the world, so that I could
be their daughter. Once I was safely in their arms, he had returned to help
other babies meet their parents. I’d loved this story as a child and often
demanded to hear the tale of how Jacob helped me be “borned.” Looking back, I
wonder how much it cost my mother to speak so often of the child she lost. If
it intensified her grief, she never let it show.  
    Each
year, they added a few more details to the story, small things that would make
sense for a child my age. But they had no choice but full disclosure the day I
came home and demanded to know the truth about Jacob. Jessica Turner’s mother
had just given birth to live, healthy twins, and with the utmost pride, Jessica
had brought in pictures for show and tell. Incensed, I wanted to know why my brother had not stayed long enough
for pictures to be taken. If Jessica’s twins were together, why weren’t Jacob
and I?
    Pushed,
my parents shared with me the story in its truest and simplest form. Although
my entry into the world had been accompanied by much screaming and wailing,
Jacob’s had been silent.   Gently, my
father had explained what stillborn meant, and that although they were very sad
not to have been able to meet him, they were very glad that I had. He said they
believed that I carried a part of him with me and that he was still very much a
member of our family.   I had cried
that day, not so much because I was sad about Jacob – I’d become
comfortable with his simultaneous presence and absence – but because in
some simple way, I realized that I was a living memorial to their dead son
– a symbol of both their joy and their grief.
    The
details of my birth, and his death, did not change the way I felt about Jabob.
To me, he would always be my protector. He was the brother who had loved me so
much, he had wanted to make sure I had lived to meet our parents. I think Jacob
is the reason my mother decided she didn’t want to have any more children. I
think she was uncertain she could handle the emotional cost of losing another
child, however unlikely that would